As tacitus was saying…
The sad, bad fact of life is that the great majority of hu-chimps (that’s US, dearie) are, well… gloriously mired up to our necks in a lot of dysfunctional poo… annnnnd when boy chimp meets girl chimp the dumbest, ,most primitive, tape playing-est, reactive, reflexive parts of our minds are activated… which is why it is “relationships” that bring out the deeply established patterns in us, for better, worse, or boring as hell…
In my personal history of relating and observing, this basic point keeps returning to my attention… people feel powerful unconscious attractions to other people who function at the same level of automaticity (or cruise control, or auto-pilot, if you prefer)…